People Before Profit blog

S.F. hotel owners defy mayors ultimatum

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 04:33:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO — The fat was in the fire Oct. 26 as operators of 14 large downtown hotels defied San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s demand to end a four-week lockout of their workers and accept a proposed 90-day cooling-off period previously agreed by the union.

The mayor had set a deadline of 2 p.m. for the hotels to comply, and had warned that if they failed to do so, he would press the city to stop doing business with the hotels in the Multi-Employer Group (MEG), and would call for a public boycott. Following the owners’ announcement, Newsom joined the picket line at the Westin St. Francis, where he received an enthusiastic welcome.

Though emphasizing his neutrality in the dispute, the mayor said the owners had shown they care more about their own interests than the city’s needs.

The hotel owners said they feared another strike at the end of 90 days if they accepted the cooling-off period. They said they would hold talks with the union during the continuing lockout.

The mayor had told a press conference the previous day, “I will do everything in my power to see to it that the city and county of San Francisco does not do business with those hotels, and I will extend that in multiple ways because I am very intense about this.” Newsom said he would be “an extremely strong advocate for the people out there on the lines, in the rain, through the holidays, who are the pawns in this.” He said he would urge the U.S. Conference of Mayors to pass a resolution of condemnation, and added that he would warn mayors of other cities where hotel contracts are expiring about what they could expect.

The mayor’s first appeal for a cooling-off period, earlier this month, was accepted by the union but rejected by the owners.

On Oct. 24, Newsom reiterated the proposal in a letter to Mike Casey, president of UNITE HERE Local 2, which represents the 4,000 cooks, cleaners, bartenders, bellmen, servers and other workers at the 14 hotels, and to Mark Huntley, president of the MEG. At issue in the dispute are:

• Health care, with employers demanding an enormous increase in the $10 per month premium workers currently pay.

• Immigrant rights and hiring, with Local 2 calling on employers to join with the union in working to reform immigration laws and to make quality hotel jobs more accessible to the city’s African American community.

• A contract expiration in 2006, sought by the union to coordinate with contracts at hotels owned by the same giant corporations in other cities, including Chicago, New York and Boston. The MEG seeks a five-year contract.

• Workload, with hotels having failed to rehire workers laid off in 2001-2002 despite rebounding occupancy levels.

The struggle has now been joined by the international labor community, with the London-based www.labourstart.org campaigning for messages in solidarity with the workers, and Australia’s 130,000-member Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union sending an official message and urging its members to send protest e-mails.

On Sept. 29, workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 2 began a two-week strike against four of the 14 hotels. The other 10 members of the Multi-Employer Group then locked out their workers, while the original four hotels refused to allow their workers to return when the two weeks were up.

On Oct. 22, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors held a hearing on a resolution introduced by board President Matt Gonzalez, urging the hotels to let the 4,000 workers return to their jobs. Nearly 2,000 workers joined a rally before the hearing, while over a thousand jammed the hearing room to hear co-workers tell their stories. The Multi-Employer Group rejected the board’s invitation to appear, complaining about the participation of several supervisors on the workers’ picket lines.

The 14 MEG facilities account for about a quarter of the city’s 32,500 hotel rooms. Among them are landmark hotels such as the Mark Hopkins, the Fairmont and the Westin St. Francis.

The author can be reached at mbechtel@pww.org.

N.Y.-Phila. transit workers are in the war together

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:08:00 +0000

GRASSROOTS POWER

New York City Transit Workers Union Local 100 members boarded buses bound for the presidential electoral battleground state of Pennsylvania Oct. 9. As part of the AFL-CIO’s Labor-to-Labor effort, union members are reaching out to fellow unionists in a massive effort to defeat George Bush and the extreme right wing.

Meeting at the Seafarers’ International Union hall in South Philadelphia, unionists were ready and raring to go. TWU 100 President Roger Toussaint, and Jeff Brooks, the new president of Philadelphia’s TWU Local 234, greeted the volunteers. They spoke about the struggles facing working people and transit workers in particular. Brooks said TWU must be in the forefront to elect a “labor-friendly president.”

TWU members were dispatched to the working-class district of Overbrook, in the predominantly African American neighborhood of West Philadelphia. We were equipped with high-tech, bar-coded, “walk sheets” with the names, addresses, and union affiliations of the labor families to contact. Volunteers could record candidate preference and any issue the union voters were concerned about for later follow-up.

After canvassing we returned to the Seafarers’ hall for a barbecue and to swap the day’s “war” stories. Most union members visited said, “We’re all voting for Kerry here,” or “Bush has got to go.” Health care, taxes, Social Security, education and the war in Iraq were all concerns.

Philadelphia working people’s political sophistication was impressive. The same workers who had seen through the extreme right, dirty tricks in last year’s mayoral election recognized the importance of defeating the extreme right nationally.

As afternoon shadows began to lengthen New Yorkers boarded the buses home, but a group of union brothers, who had come separately by car, headed to Atlantic City, N.J. — not to gamble, but for solidarity picketing with striking UNITE-HERE workers.

— Gary Bono, TWU Local 100 member

Conn. unionists cast wider net for votes

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 06:09:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Pat Highsmith spent her day off last Saturday traveling 150 miles to Bethlehem, Pa., to discuss the presidential election with fellow union members. One of 3 million industrial workers whose plants closed during the last four years, Highsmith now works as a certified nurse’s assistant, with less pay and no benefits.

“I felt like I was home,” said Highsmith, describing the camaraderie with unemployed steelworkers who greeted the Connecticut buses and paired off to knock on the doors of union households.

She quickly found that in this Republican county George W. Bush was not getting away with empty claims of creating jobs and health care.

A retired autoworker and veteran, who said he can no longer afford rising medical co-pays and prescription drug costs, exclaimed, “I voted Republican in the local election, but I’m not voting for Bush!”

“Labor’s vote can make the difference for Kerry to carry this state,” said Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President William George, thanking the volunteers who visited 5,000 homes. Organized trips to battleground states by activists from states considered solid for Kerry are forging solidarity that goes beyond workplace or state boundaries.

“What a difference when you greet people at their door and say ‘we’re union, too,’” said Len Yannielli, a community college teacher from Naugatuck, Conn., who traveled to New Hampshire. He and 100 members of Service Employees International Union found a welcome reception as they knocked on doors, armed with handouts showing a 47.1 percent increase in the number of uninsured during Bush’s reign.

“An anti-union right wing has been active in the New Hampshire state Legislature for years,” said Merrilee Milstein, the AFL-CIO’s deputy northeast regional director. She credits local unions and the help from neighboring states with “creating a new sense of the labor movement in New Hampshire. Thousands and thousands of people have been involved in a very personal way to fight George Bush and the right wing.”

Within Connecticut, hundreds of labor and community activists have registered a record number of new voters, especially in African American and Latino neighborhoods. In New Haven, Beulah Pigott, a retiree and grandmother of six, devoted her Saturday to registering voters at a supermarket. “Please take a moment,” she said convincing several young women to get involved. “This is important for your lives.”

Union members and their allies from around Connecticut are also doing their part to change Congress by knocking on doors to defeat moderate Republicans in the 2nd and 4th Congressional Districts who have voted with the Bush agenda. The impact of trips to battleground states by labor, women’s and environmental groups is giving confidence to local campaigns and the growing movement for good jobs, health care and an end to war.

Richard Hill, a New Haven musician and teacher, felt alienated and helpless to influence the election before joining the labor bus to Bethlehem, Pa.

“After making this trip,” he said, “I feel connected to a powerful movement that will have a life after this election.”

The author can be reached at joelle.fishman@pobox.com.

Hotel, casino workers battle on two coasts

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 05:51:00 +0000

Undaunted by the challenge of four high-stakes contract struggles on two coasts, the union representing hotel and casino workers has revved up its solidarity machine.

“We’re fighting the fight we have to fight,” union spokesperson Amanda Cooper told the World. “We’ll see it through till we win.”

Up against some of the same multinational giants, UNITE HERE members in Atlantic City, N.J., San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., have similar long-term goals. In Atlantic City, Local 54 is seeking a three-year contract. They want a 2007 expiration date to coincide with the contracts of their 65,000 Las Vegas and Detroit counterparts in the gaming industry.

Similarly, hotel workers in D.C., L.A. and San Francisco are seeking two-year contracts that will come up for renegotiation at the same time as those of their fellow hospitality industry workers in the major hotel/convention cities of New York, Chicago, Boston, Toronto and Honolulu.

“If we set our next contract to expire in 2006, then we will be bargaining in the same year as 50,000 other hotel workers across North America who work for the same corporations we do,” said the Sept. 9 issue of Local 25’s publication, Hotel Worker News.

The newsletter cited Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton and Starwood as big hotel companies that operate on a national level but insist on bargaining with the union in isolated units.

Due to different market conditions in each city, the union is not seeking nationwide master agreements in the hospitality and gaming industries. But it is looking to a future when a common contract expiration will vastly increase the workers’ bargaining power.

In Atlantic City, where 10,000 casino workers are on strike, 80 were arrested in civil disobedience actions while 3,000 marched last week. This week the union is upping the ante, vowing to flood the city’s boardwalk with up to 10,000 supporters from up and down the Eastern seaboard.

In San Francisco, employers locked out nearly 4,000 workers in 10 establishments after the union called a limited 14-day walkout at four hotels. But the workers haven’t backed off.

“We want to fix the huge workload problems that management has caused us,” room cleaner Amy Wan from the San Francisco Hilton explained. “Hilton is a huge corporation. It makes lots of money.”

In Los Angeles, employers have refused to even sit down at the bargaining table, but labor and community allies are weighing in.

A delegation of Hollywood union leaders representing actors, musicians, television and radio artists and broadcast and stage employees was rebuffed as they sought to meet with management of the luxury Regent Beverly Wilshire. The group urged the public to avoid eating, meeting or sleeping at the nine hotels represented by the Employers Council, which has unilaterally — and illegally — forced workers to pay a new $40 monthly fee for health care.

In both L.A. and D.C., workers are still on the job, but backed by 90 percent-plus strike authorization votes, the mass negotiating committees, which include hundreds of rank and filers, continue to press the workers’ demands. Wages, pensions, health care and backbreaking workloads are key issues for the predominantly immigrant work force.

IBEW rank and file powers up electoral grid

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 05:36:00 +0000

Commentary

When Dick Cheney boasted during the vice presidential debate that he had “carried a ticket with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for six years,” he didn’t impress many IBEW members.

It was like a skunk bragging that he used to wear Chanel No. 5, I thought. He still stinks.

IBEW President Ed Hill fired back the next day in a sharply worded statement, saying he wished the union had done a better job instilling its values in the young Cheney when it had a chance. “Perhaps then he would not so relentlessly pursue policies that have caused catastrophic job losses and inflicted tremendous pain on countless working families,” Hill said.

Cheney might have learned that when the IBEW was founded over 100 years ago, one out of two workers in the industry died in falls or electrocutions. Safety standards, as much as wages, drove workers to band together in a brotherhood. On the job, each worker’s life was literally in the hands of his co-worker. In this election season, that vision of solidarity, of workers holding each other’s lives in their hands, has extended to the political arena.

So on a sunny August day, I was proud to be one of many IBEW members who poured into the battleground state of Ohio, crossing state lines to answer our brothers’ and sisters’ call for reinforcements in the battle for jobs and to defeat George Bush.

A Chicago bus, initiated by our city’s Electrical Workers Minority Caucus chapter, left in a pounding rainstorm at 3 in the morning. In Toledo, we paired up with local electricians and went on a 6-hour labor walk visiting union households. Kentuckians came to Cincinnati, Hoosiers to Columbus.

All told, nearly 200 IBEW members were out in force in Ohio that day, including in Cleveland, Akron and Marietta. In our neon-yellow shirts, the electrical workers scattered throughout working class neighborhoods sharing our own stories and election information with the union families we visited.

“Participating in activities like this makes for a different kind of union member,” said my canvassing partner, international rep Thomas Curley, as we went door to door in the east Toledo neighborhood where he grew up.

Local 3 in New York launched the union’s labor walk campaign June 23 with a three-bus convoy, accompanied by two dozen motorcyclists, to Philadelphia. The solidarity buses have continued every Saturday in September and October. This month, Local 3 also mobilized dozens of its unemployed members to staff voter registration tables in 15 hospitals and 15 community colleges over a five-day period, signing up thousands of new voters.

The union’s 2004 National Political Coordinator, Edwin Lopez, sees the activities transforming union members. Political activities are “identifying new activists, creating ways for them to participate, and renewing members’ belief in their union and pride in themselves as union members.”

Lopez worked in the tools as an inside wireman, and then as a Local 3 business rep. He is also a national leader of the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus. He’s a real working class intellectual, combining deep thinking on the problems facing the labor movement with non-stop activism.

“The members are learning first-hand how politics is tied to collective bargaining and to the right to organize. A core of activists is the heart and soul of the union,” he said. “All we have is our members – if our members are not charged up, we have nothing.”

It’s not just the IBEW rank and file that’s charged up. Hill told a recent women’s conference, he found himself saying things he earlier would have called radical, “talking the same talk as the labor leaders of the 1930s. There’s a class war being waged,” Hill said, “even though we didn’t start it.”

It’s working class pride and determination that characterizes the three-pronged approach that Hill has been relentlessly promoting — organizing, political action and emphasis on skills and quality workmanship.”

“The card that the vice president carried was his ticket to decent wages and benefits for the fruits of his labor,” Hill’s response to Cheney stated. “It’s too bad that now he wants to pull up the ladder and deny that same opportunity to others.”

IBEW members are on the road this fall, crossing state lines, to make sure it doesn’t happen. It’s a brotherhood thing, Dick. You wouldn’t understand.

The author, labor editor of the Peoples Weekly World and a 15-year member of IBEW Local 9, can be reached at rwood@pww.org.

Iron Range fired up

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 05:25:00 +0000

HIBBING, Minn. — The 2004 presidential election is “historically far more important than any other … in my lifetime,” Steelworkers District 11 Director David Foster told a get-out-the-vote training session in the heart of Minnesota’s Iron Range Oct. 2. To find another turning point “so fundamental to the future of our country,” he said, you have to go back “to my parents’ time, the 1930s.”

It demands a “new level of participation, different from what we might have done 10 or 20 years ago,” Foster said.

He was addressing 25 Iron Rangers gathered at the Memorial Building here for a day of training and door-knocking organized by Wellstone Action, America Coming Together (ACT) and the Steelworkers.

Neighbors talking to neighbors are “the fundamental building block in how people’s decisions are made,” Foster said. “We built our unions on the basis of this kind of politics, this kind of approach to organizing. Working under extraordinarily difficult conditions — blacklisting, brutal suppression — the work was done in people’s kitchens, winning converts one by one.”

Sen. Paul Wellstone, revered by working class Minnesotans, was killed two years ago in a plane crash near here in the final weeks of his campaign for a third term. Modeled on his people-to-people campaigns, sessions like this one are training and activating ordinary people, like public health nurse Connie Vidmar and social service worker Nancy Melin, who said they had never door-knocked before.

Melin told the group that in her work she meets people “who are directly affected by national policies but do not vote.” She said she wanted to “learn how to motivate some of those people.” Vidmar said, “I see selfishness taking over the country. We can’t leave it to the next person” to do something about it.

Tough struggle is nothing new on the Iron Range, where memories of steel company intimidation and terror are still fresh. “There’s a reason for unions,” Vidmar said. “Our kids don’t remember the baseball bats,” she added, referring to attacks on union organizers by company thugs.

The Iron Range is marked by red ridges, formed from earth dumped out of the open mines that dot the area. Iron ore brought people and jobs to this region, but the steel companies ravaged the landscape and fought the unions tooth-and-nail. Now, companies are throwing workers and retirees on the scrap heap. In the last four years, 11,000 steelworker jobs have disappeared in District 11, which stretches from Minnesota to Washington State.

Jerry Fallos worked at LTV’s nearby Hoyt Lakes mine for 35 years. He was president of USWA Local 4108, with 1,400 employees and 3,000 retirees.

“Out of the clear blue,” LTV closed the mine three years ago, giving only two months’ notice. Workers lost their health care, and retirees had their pensions slashed. Some found jobs in other mines, but many of those closed down too. Now many are working at $8/hour jobs.

“Basically they work to pay for health insurance,” Fallos told the World. “It’s sad to see a 50-year-old competing with high school kids to carry out groceries at the supermarket.”

Fallos is now coordinator for the USWA Associate Member Program, which is organizing laid-off steelworkers and also throwing its doors open to anyone in the community, offering workplace rights assistance and involvement in grassroots political action.

Charlie Olson, Labor 2004 coordinator for the Iron Range, is organizing phone banks, worksite flyering, and late afternoon door-knocks. He is a member of USWA 2705, on leave from his job as maintenance mechanic at Hibbing Taconite, where he’s worked for 29 years.

At 59, retirement is on Olson’s mind. Sitting in the Chisholm USWA office as early October snowflakes drifted down outside, he said the biggest issue for retirees is reform of corporate bankruptcy rules, “so these companies can’t steal their pensions.” Steel companies buy and sell each other, then file for bankruptcy, with “no responsibility” for workers and retirees. “When ore runs out at Hibbing Taconite, they’ll just shut down,” he said bitterly. “Corporate America doesn’t care.”

Referring to the GOP focus on “values” issues like abortion, Olson said, “This area is one of the most conservative areas in the country. But they vote Democratic overwhelmingly. They do that because they believe in taking care of our fellow man.”

“We need more than Kerry elected,” he said. “We need to change the makeup of Congress so they’re more worker-friendly.”

Foster told the World he believes this election is fundamentally about Bush’s desire to “turn back in a grotesque direction … becoming global policemen for a [pro-corporate] global economy.” At issue is “how the organization of the global economy is going to take place. We have the opportunity to bend back in the direction of humanity.”

“Our forefathers at the turn of the century fought the robber barons,” Foster told the Hibbing gathering. “They won fundamental reforms that created civil society in the 20th century.” Today, he said, a similar struggle is needed “with an urgency as never before.”

The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org.

Kerry walks Ohio picket line

Fri, 08 Oct 2004 05:31:00 +0000

Presidential candidate John Kerry visited the picket line in front of the RMI Titanium plant in Niles, Ohio, Oct. 3 before he proceeded to a town hall meeting in nearby Warren. For a half hour he marched with the locked-out steelworkers, talking with them about the hardships they are going through.

They described their difficulties in keeping their lives together, how some families are being torn apart. Locked out by the company for three years, most of the 361 workers have not found other jobs. Many said they have survived only because their spouses have work.

Donald Bertroff, who worked at RMI for nine years, said, “You just stay home most of the time, trying to make ends meet, with my wife working.” Tony Lawrence, a 31-year veteran at the plant, said the workers are trying to fight, to “hang on.”

Kerry told them, “I respect you enormously, your courage to ... fight it out.”

Led by their local union president, Ray Raschilla Jr., RMI workers testified at the town hall meeting about the devastating impact the lockout had had on their lives.

“The lockout has destroyed families, with people being forced to choose between their health insurance and paying the mortgage,” said Raschilla.

Kerry said, “While people like Ray can’t get health insurance or unemployed benefits extended, these people in Washington are fighting with everything they’ve got to give the wealthiest people in America a tax break.”

He hammered hard at the loss of jobs in Ohio and the increased tax burden placed on working families by those tax cuts for the wealthy. Kerry listed four priorities for his administration if he’s elected: (1) No privatizing of Social Security or Medicare — the latter can be fixed with a plan to lower the cost of prescription drugs and allowing importation of Canadian drugs; (2) Investing in education, especially early childhood education; (3) Provide affordable college education; and (4) Enforce labor laws to allow unions to organize.

Following the format of all town hall meetings, Kerry answered questions from the audience, responding to a comment that “the most dramatic, clear, unequivocal statement of the 9/11 Commission underscored the degree to which America has been misled” on the war in Iraq.

The author can be reached at wallyk@ncweb.com.

L.A. County Fed gears up for offensive

Fri, 08 Oct 2004 05:27:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES — Labor history was made Sept. 30 as the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, held U.S. labor’s first-ever central labor council congress. A thousand rank-and-filers and labor leaders approved a proactive progressive program to elect Kerry-Edwards, pass California Proposition 72 to require major employers to provide health care benefits to workers, initiate an alliance with the county’s 400,000 community college students, and raise a million-dollar strike solidarity action fund.

With the Kerry-Edwards ticket leading in California by 15 points, according to polls, the County Fed voted unanimously to “adopt” the battleground state of Nevada. Union members will use the Fed’s state-of-the-art phone-bank system, and those of affiliates, to reach 60,000 Nevada union voters with a personal pro-Kerry message.

John Edwards, Democratic vice presidential candidate, pledged to Los Angeles hotel workers, “If there is a strike we will not cross your picket lines.”

By satellite transmission, Edwards saluted the federation’s solidarity efforts for janitors, homecare, long shore, transit, and grocery workers. Each of these was a nationally significant strike or organizing drive which beat back union-busting drives with enormous solidarity efforts.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said that Kerry and Edwards deserve labor support for criticizing Bush’s deception in leading the country into war on Iraq and for having “a plan that will create good jobs and stop outsourcing.”

The congress unanimously voted to embark on a bold new project — building an alliance with the 400,000 community college students in the county, most of whom work at least part-time and whose average age is 28. Last year, 175,000 students couldn’t take classes due to high fees, book and tool costs, and unavailable courses. Cheered by 200 student leaders in the hall, the congress voted to campaign to raise business taxes in order to pay for books and tools for the community college students.

Union density is increasing in L.A. County. In the last four years, the L.A. Fed has grown to over 800,000 members in 340 locals. The labor council’s success stems from building unity in action at both leadership and rank-and-file levels and mobilizing public support for political and organizing tasks, said its executive secretary treasurer, Miguel Contreras.

For example, strike solidarity strengthened the alliance with African American clergy. The Justice for Janitors campaigns won the support of the Catholic hierarchy, while the four-month grocery strike won the support of feminist groups.

Contreras stressed, “We demand the politicians we help elect be more than just a good vote … they must be warriors for working people.” He added the $1-million strike fund would be dedicated to mobilizing solidarity and public support.

Rank-and-filers testified how labor unity in action, combined with with political support, drew in allies during recent strikes. African American transit worker Sandra Wyrich told the group, “When we were out (on strike) 32 days, the union and the Fed won the strike. We kept our pensions and health care and I was able to keep supporting my family.” SEIU Justice for Janitors Local 1877 striker Blanca Perez said when she went out, her whole family was on strike — her three sisters, mother, husband and 12 children. “When it got tough, Miguel (Contreras) … raised $400,000 for us in 24 hours and saved our lives.”

The hard, class-struggle facts of life propel the union fightback, UCLA Labor Studies Director Kent Wong said. From 1970 to 1985, Los Angeles’ good-paying union jobs were devastated with the closing of auto, steel, rubber, and aerospace plants, as well as runaway shops. “Thirty years ago, GM was the largest employer, now Wal-Mart is. When 3,000 union jobs recently opened up on the docks, 400,000 applied,” said Wong, noting that the number of poor in L.A. County rose by 366,300 between 1990 and 2000. With the policies of Bush and Gov. Schwarzenegger, Wong said, the 50 wealthiest people in Los Angeles are worth $82 billion, more than the yearly earnings of 2.2 million workers.

“The labor movement is the only hope for those who enjoy a middle class status of living, and for those who aspire to it.” Contreras said.

One longtime labor activist observed that this labor council’s proactive program has made breakthroughs on both local and state levels. “If we defeat Bush with Kerry-Edwards,” he said, “it could be a model to push through a new ‘New Deal.’”

The author can be reached at rosalio_munoz@sbcglobal.net.

Hotel workers check out in SF

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 03:52:00 +0000

San Francisco hotel workers walked out Sept. 29 as part of a three-city struggle to force giant hotel chains to agree to a common contract expiration date. The union has announced the 1,200-member strike will last two weeks and cover four of the city’s major hotels — the Argent, Hilton San Francisco, Crowne Plaza Union Square and Mark Hopkins Inter-Continental.

In Washington, D.C., 3,500 workers and 2,800 in Los Angeles stood ready to join the walkout if called. Management is demanding reduced health benefits and pensions and increased workloads, and is holding out for separate contract expiration dates for each city.

Dignity and respect have emerged as focal points for the D.C. hotel workers, according to John Boardman, executive secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 25 there. Organized discussions among the membership revealed abusive managers and crushing workloads, Boardman told the World. Seventy-three percent of employees reported having to work through their breaks to complete their quotas; 79 percent have found “mistakes” in their paychecks.

The union is demanding dozens of significant contract language changes to impose effective remedies when management mistreats the workers, Boardman said. Union proposals address increasing the number of shop floor representatives the union has, union access to the workplace, making the grievance process faster, and penalties for management when workers’ paychecks are wrong.

The strike and coordinated contract struggle follow a long-range plan by the newly merged union to “create power” by systematically increasing union density in the entire industry. Demands for card-check recognition in newly acquired hotels are part of the union agenda.

“Most of us are people of color and immigrants,” said Donald Wilson, a cook at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. “Maybe we work in the back of the house, but we deserve respect. To get it, we have to be equal with the hotel companies at the bargaining table. Otherwise, they divide us city by city.”

The 60 stewards who make up the LA bargaining committee represent a workforce that is 85 percent Latino immigrants. The committee has proposed a union-management “diversity committee” to increase outreach for hiring in the African American community. African Americans, historically a major part of the hotel industry, have been replaced by immigrant workers who management feels will be easier to “keep under their boot,” a union spokesperson explained. Management responded, “Not interested,” to the diversity proposal.

If the union achieves its goal of a common expiration date in 2006, 55,000 hotel workers in 10 cities will be able to leverage their combined power in negotiations with hotel giants that year.

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org.